Are you guys using KJC or MF? I found my damage to be extremely underwhelming yesterday (only like 160-175K) while we're progressing on this boss.

Do you AoE off an Ice Wall in the center by the boss or in the center point of a wall?

I use MF and multidot all three walls with FnB-Immo and keep RoF on all of them. (Plus Serv/Succ for whiplash). I keep up the 3 RoFs + Immo and use normal AoE on the one we have to kill when I'm not doing that. Once they start hitting 20% I Havoc the highest health one and spam shadowburns till they hit 0%. (Any more damage past 0% before they despawn is wasted)

I use MF and multidot all three walls with FnB-Immo and keep RoF on all of them. (Plus Serv/Succ for whiplash). I keep up the 3 RoFs + Immo and use normal AoE on the one we have to kill when I'm not doing that. Once they start hitting 20% I Havoc the highest health one and spam shadowburns till they hit 0%. (Any more damage past 0% before they despawn is wasted)

Wow, holy shit I am mindblown. Embarassing revelation.

You can have separate RoFs ticking (even though you only get the buff for the most recent RoF placed?)...

You can have separate RoFs ticking (even though you only get the buff for the most recent RoF placed?)...

Yeah, but you don't do damage to the same target twice. So, if you dropped like 5 at the same place, it would only do the damage of one. It sorta increases the area as opposed to actually increasing the ticks.

The % where your backdrafted incinerate cast time is under 1 second with no other haste buffs up. (I don't know what % that is, but that's where crit will be better than haste for pure-single target)

A better answer is the amount of haste where you as a player begin to not be able to react fast enough to changes in the rotation due to it being too fast paced. That could be with 1 sec incinerates, or that could be with very little haste at all. If you can't take advantage of that haste, then it's going to waste.

RoF should generally be maintained constantly, provided it will deal damage throughout its full duration on one target, or a proportional amount of its duration on multiples.

As for when to cast it, as long as you waste no procs, you can slip it in whenever. Warlocks in general are all about proc-management; you don't want Backdraft to go unused, you want to maximize your damage during trinket/enchant/racial/raid procs. RoF, while dealing some damage, is mainly used for ember-generation. Do not try and maintain a 100% uptime if that means not getting in that extra buffed CB. Consequently, do not use it if it means capping on embers, either, or capping on Conflagrate charges.

That being said, our "rotation" is fairly simple and fast-paced, so it should be easy to squeeze in RoFs with little downtime.

RoF should generally be maintained constantly, provided it will deal damage throughout its full duration on one target, or a proportional amount of its duration on multiples.

As for when to cast it, as long as you waste no procs, you can slip it in whenever. Warlocks in general are all about proc-management; you don't want Backdraft to go unused, you want to maximize your damage during trinket/enchant/racial/raid procs. RoF, while dealing some damage, is mainly used for ember-generation. Do not try and maintain a 100% uptime if that means not getting in that extra buffed CB. Consequently, do not use it if it means capping on embers, either, or capping on Conflagrate charges.

That being said, our "rotation" is fairly simple and fast-paced, so it should be easy to squeeze in RoFs with little downtime.

Cheers for the clarification about RoF, really helped me out.

Just one more thing I'm wondering about is when/how to use CB outside DS or avoid being ember capped. For example, I have 2.5 embers, my int trinket procs. Do I A) burn all my embers using CB (a miniburn so to speak) or B) Use CB scarcely, ie. cast one CB, refill to 2.5 embers, cast another CB, refill embers again?

Just one more thing I'm wondering about is when/how to use CB outside DS or avoid being ember capped. For example, I have 2.5 embers, my int trinket procs. Do I A) burn all my embers using CB (a miniburn so to speak) or B) Use CB scarcely, ie. cast one CB, refill to 2.5 embers, cast another CB, refill embers again?

Hope I made any sense. ^^

This is something that requires planning and that you have to figure out on the go. If you need embers later in the fight for burst phases or adds that need to die ASAP, then you obviously have to make sure you don't burn too much embers such that you do not have time to regenerate them for said event. You almost always want 3-4 embers before going into DS, so you want to make sure you have enough to almost cap before its cooldown is up. It also depends on which procs you have available, say you have an old tier Light of the Cosmos and Breath of the Hydra in your trinket slots, BotH is obviously much stronger which means you might not want to empty your ember bar on a LotC proc in anticipation that BotH can proc soon for stronger CBs.

Cooldown and proc management is tremendously important. This is your goal:

1) do not cap embers
2) cast as many CBs/SBs as possible during DS
3) cast as many CBs/SBs as possible during your best Int procs

1) is fairly easy to take care of, simply throw in a CB/SB when you are at ~3.5 embers, then continue normally. The exact value depends on your ember-income; in a fight where you gain them like crazy (say, Primordius as an extreme example) you want to start spending earlier. Ideally, you want to manage 2) and 3) in a way that 1) happens rarely anyway, but you probably won't be able to prevent it entirely. Don't be afraid to burn an unbuffed CB/SB if it means avoiding ember-capping!

2) obviously has an easy-to-see timeline, since you usually know with good enough accuracy how long the fight is going to be and, consequently, how many DS you will be able to pop. That means you can delay using it to align with procs, as long as the overall number of uses remains the same. If you have trouble estimating fight lengths, or are doing progression, use it on cooldown. Missing a use is far more tragic than not aligning it with procs. Anyway, you will want to start saving embers when DS is about to get used, so you can get in the maximum amount of CBs/SBs with the buff. However, you should still not cap your embers!

3) is the trickiest part. I strongly recommend setting your UI up in a way that allows for good tracking of your procs and cooldowns. If you have procs with internal cooldowns (like the Shado-Pan Assault VP trinket, or the Tailoring enchant), I strongly suggest you track these, too. It's harder with RPPM procs, since these can occur quite chaotically (Jade Spirit was changed to that system, it no longer has an ICD). Either way, you have to develop a bit of a "feeling" for which proc is "up" soon. You definitely want to burn during your highest procs, or even during multiple procs at once - but you also want to minimize 1) where you have to burn off embers without any procs. In my opinion, this is one of the parts of playing Destro that is the most skill-dependent (general play skill/dexterity aside). It takes practice to get this down well, so don't be disheartened when you don't succeed right away!

Note: as always, the demands of the fight are more important than anything. If there are fight-specific damage mechanics, or things that need to die quickly, you should prioritize around that, not around a static list. But, since these things vary so wildly from fight to fight and from raid setup to raid setup, it's hard to generalize. Always think ahead, know what is happening, and what you need to do!

I just dont understand how simcraft still shows Destro so low. Makes it discouraging to play, but when myself does hands down more dps as destro on like Heroic Mag. in 25man compared to affliction or being competitive on Jinrokh Heroic.

Simcraft is "stupid" in a way that assumes every fight to be the same, without special mechanics; real fights however rarely are like that. Destro especially can vary wildly, because of the way our embers are generated. As soon as you can RoF multiple mobs, or snipe SBs, your ember generation shoots up, and your damage increases by a lot. Horridon and Primordius are examples of fights that heavily favor Destro because of this, but there are other fights, too, where you can make use of it.

When using Simcraft, always keep these things in mind. It's a very useful analysis tool, but it's not the final word on our "optimal" performance. It's much more useful for theorycraft and stat analysis than for actual, real-fight numbers.

Simcraft is "stupid" in a way that assumes every fight to be the same, without special mechanics; real fights however rarely are like that. Destro especially can vary wildly, because of the way our embers are generated. As soon as you can RoF multiple mobs, or snipe SBs, your ember generation shoots up, and your damage increases by a lot. Horridon and Primordius are examples of fights that heavily favor Destro because of this, but there are other fights, too, where you can make use of it.

When using Simcraft, always keep these things in mind. It's a very useful analysis tool, but it's not the final word on our "optimal" performance. It's much more useful for theorycraft and stat analysis than for actual, real-fight numbers.

I find that I use simcraft to calculate minor differences in gear setups and which will be optimal. As for ranking the actual specs, however, I'd much rather trust to crowdsourcing and look at world of logs top lists. Yes, some people are cheesing mechanics to increase their DPS, and yes, sometimes a certain spec sims higher and therefore all the more skilled players are doing it, but there are generally enough people logging out there that if there's some way to increase DPS beyond what simcraft suggests, people will find it.

It's not like Simcraft went with GoEA for demonology & Lei Shen trinket, or used the SS issue on multiple target fights with affliction; players discovered those on their own.

so is our tier set (for destro) really that bad...im 530 ilvl with 2pc simcraft has me at 167k 4pc 169k and with 1 tier pc and the rest just thunderforged and or heroic pc's of gear simcraft has me 177k just doesnt make any sense to me tbh

I think it's safe to say that Destro will keep 2pc at best, given BiS conditions. Now keep in mind though that it's going to be a very, very rare case for someone to have access to all the BiS hcTF pieces; doubly so in a 10m guild. I think that given the high variance of most of the hcTF gear, BiS is a concept that should be re-evaluated. But under ideal conditions... yes, I think most if not all the tier can be replaced with hcTF alternatives and the raw stat power will make up for the loss of tier bonuses. I like 2pc though. 2pc is rad.

I think it's safe to say that Destro will keep 2pc at best, given BiS conditions. Now keep in mind though that it's going to be a very, very rare case for someone to have access to all the BiS hcTF pieces; doubly so in a 10m guild. I think that given the high variance of most of the hcTF gear, BiS is a concept that should be re-evaluated. But under ideal conditions... yes, I think most if not all the tier can be replaced with hcTF alternatives and the raw stat power will make up for the loss of tier bonuses. I like 2pc though. 2pc is rad.

i agree the 2 pc is nice i like not using a full ember for a CB so once i let a few off with ROF going i have enough for almost 2-3 more depending on if the meta has proced at that time ...just when i do long sims on my toon and in tier gear then sim again in non-tier it shows non tier pulling ahead by alot..and ive done sims in every variation possible. ive spent almost 4 days just running sims AOE,single target ect ect all roads lead to tier being the low road to take..and i thought the tier was atleast better for affliction and since its my offspec i was gathering gear that ppl no longer needed nor wanted and in the past 2 weeks was able to get a full set of gear for affliction so eliminating having to reforge and regem just using destro for aoe cleave situations and affliction for fights that called for it but even for affliction both 4pc and 2pc show me at a almost 7-8k dps difference to non tier pieces that i decided to use for destro tho i dont have UVLS yet so im thinking perhaps that will make a difference and make up for this dps loss the sims are showing...only time will tell i guess.

I suppose it very well could be that 0pc not only sims higher, but is actually better in practice, given ideal conditions. But then again, this discussion is largely academic, unless you are in one of the highest level 25m guilds. Even there, you will need some luck getting all the pieces you need in TF quality, so really, that precise situation affects like what, 100 people worldwide or something? Well, whatever the actual number, it's going to be SMALL. I think it's much more feasible to concentrate not on a theoretical best-case scenario, but on what is available to you; the question of whether to swap out some tier pieces for hcTF, for example, holds much more merit than swapping out ALL of them.